This Shocking New Documentary Will Make You Second-Guess a Glass of Milk

On the side of the road in an unmarked white van, the award-winning investigative journalist Nelufar Hedayat, known for her global stories about women’s rights and cultural issues, such as The Traffickers, meets an undercover reporter working for an animal advocacy organization. The unidentified man shares secret clips from his time spent on a big dairy farm in the Northeast. In them are cows who get stuck in water troughs; one is pulled out by her nostrils only to slip and fall into a puddle. Another is lying on the ground, either too sick or too injured to move, receiving hundreds of “hot shots” by an electric prod before she is moved on to the milker one last time before entering the sick barn. It’s a scene that is consistent within the majority of investigations done, says the anonymous source. Of them, only one person has been charged with animal cruelty, receiving a fine of hundreds of dollars.

The cow as a commodity is but one harsh truth in Food Exposed With Nelufar Hedayat, Fusion’s eight-part docuseries exploring the shocking facts behind the food industry. Last year, Hedayat and her crew traveled more than 175,000 miles, from the North Pole and Hong Kong to West Africa and Central America, to speak with farmers, activists, experts, and politicians in the fields of water pollution, GMOs, palm oil production, and more.

Case in point: Did you know that in 2048, the edible fish in the ocean may be depleted to such an extent that we will no longer be able to eat the way that we do? What it means for seafood-centric cultures, such as China, where Hedayat pulls back the curtain on commercialized over-fishing, and other industries’ bottom lines, is yet to be seen. “One thing I know,” says Hedayat over the phone from inside a yellow cab in Manhattan’s East Village, “is that we are all connected in ways that we could never anticipate.”

Another episode tackles the U.S., where roughly 40 percent of edible food is wasted, a majority of which is due to big businesses tossing out produce that’s past its sell-by date or bruised fruit, an “ugly” marking that guest star Nicole Richie likens to a “beautiful freckle.” Meanwhile, over 40 million Americans live under the poverty line. Hedayat spent time dumpster diving with New York City freegans, finding such treasures as bread that was still warm—and easily worthy of donation—a fact she called “nauseating.”

But the U.S. dairy episode, which investigates the nearly $100 billion industry, has a special place in her heart—and those who watch it may never look at a glass of milk the same way. “I was expecting to make a film about the dairy industry and to hold accountable a lot of the farmers,” Hedayat says. “What I didn’t expect was to be more thrown and genuinely gobsmacked by how much the farmers themselves are suffering.”

Hedayat, a vegan who had not tried a glass of milk in over four years until filming this episode last fall, visits small dairy farmers who are either facing jail time for producing and distributing raw, unpasteurized milk, which is illegal, or have already gone belly up. “One farmer goes out of business in the U.S. every day,” says Hedayat, recalling one such subject named Bruce Kristoff who, as a child, grew up as a dairy farmer in Wisconsin. He, like many, sold his farm of 36 cows because he couldn’t compete with factory farms, better known as concentrated animal feeding operations (or CAFOs) that own thousands of cows and produce tens of thousands of gallons of milk per day—twice as much as they did 40 years ago, even though people are drinking less of it than ever.

So where does it all go? The answers prove as shocking as they are complex, revealing a corrupt web of government regulation, false advertising and nutritional misinformation, and even fast-food overconsumption and complicity. Or, as Hedayat asks: “What is it that the government is protecting and regulating on our behalf?”

The good news is knowledge is power, which this series is providing across industries and continents alike. And while you may feel like you don’t have the ability to change laws right now, you do get to decide what you buy and who you buy it from. And as consumers start shifting their purchasing power, change can happen. “You can work to make it better,” says music icon and guest star Moby, an animal activist who is stridently against factory farming. Hedayat agrees: “We are absolutely where the buck starts and stops.”